


Circumstantial

by GCLane



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: ASD Sherlock, Case Fic, Closeted John, M/M, Sexuality, tiny cases anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2018-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-11 15:49:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7059169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GCLane/pseuds/GCLane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Indirect evidence inferred from circumstances which afford a certain presumption, or appear explainable only on one hypothesis. - Oxford English Dictionary</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

John possesses enough pop culture awareness to recognize Beyoncé’s voice when he hears it bounding from the club’s sound system. He watches Sherlock’s hip catch on the beat, twice, as he leans on the bar, chatting up a blond. Sherlock lopes out to the dance floor, his left arm trailing, leading, luring the man at his heels. Their fingers brush. The casual way that Sherlock’s hand finds the man’s hip, how he’s using the music to lead them back toward the clumsy drug deal that he is desperately trying to eavesdrop on and photograph, and the sham smile that does not leave his face, all of it makes something cruel and heavy settle low in John’s gut. 

Loudly, Lestrade sets his empty pint on the table they’re sharing, drawing John’s attention. “Good God,” he exclaims over the music. 

John turns his head, feeling as if he has a look on his face that he should be adjusting. “What?”

Lestrade sighs, closes his eyes for a moment, and seems to reconsider. He stands up and nods a farewell. “Gotta text from Donovan. Text me if you have to flee when the suspect makes that idiot.” 

Lestrade shakes his head as he passes close to Sherlock on the dance floor, who is snogging the blond while he takes photographs behind his back. There’s tongue, that’s obvious even at 20 feet, and Sherlock’s partner appears to be so thoroughly, absolutely kissed that he’s relying on the support provided by Sherlock’s steady, photographing, right arm. 

\----

Seven minutes later, having disposed of the blond, Sherlock grabs John’s arm, “Come on.” 

The worryingly large suspect is on the move with the money. He’s headed for the men’s. John and Sherlock have a ten-second head start. 

They push through the crowd, the door, and into an accessible stall. Sherlock spins, and closes the door by backing John against it hard enough that John’s head bounds against the metal. Sherlock’s elbows are on either side of John’s head, above his shoulders, his quick breath and his kiss-softened lips at John’s hairline, keeping his head below the top of the stall. 

Sherlock is whispering to either John, himself, or both of them. John catches snatches of it, “why are you so terrible at this...either another drop or a text… somewhere in here?... has to be at least a quarter million…” John hears the snap of a smartphone camera and Sherlock stiffens. “Another drop. No no no. Wrong.” 

Sherlock falls to his knees between John’s feet. John plants his palms on the door, ready to move, ready for something, but definitely not ready for Sherlock’s hand on his belt. John starts, begins to slap him away. Sherlock shakes his head sharply and, in a soft, rough, but purposefully audible voice all disconnected from his body language, he says, ” Uh-uh. You know you want me to, love.”

Sherlock uses the rattling racket of John’s belt buckle and the pull of his zip to cover the sound of his own phone, snapping pictures under the stall door. But, still, that only buys them about 45 seconds. Sherlock looks up at John, seeking a suggestion. John makes a face that clearly communicates how many times he is going to murder Sherlock (It’s three. He is going to murder him three times.), takes a breath, and thumps his head back against the stall door in the same spot that’s still singing from the first bump. He moans a series of affirmatives and obscenities that allow Sherlock another minute of picture snapping. 

John’s performance is operatic enough that, at one point, Sherlock looks up from his work to register his surprise. John glances down and their eyes meet fleetingly as he gasps praise for something that is not happening. The semi-competent drug runner mutters what is undoubtedly a slur for homosexual men in a language John does not understand. Sherlock puts his phone away. They wait. Sherlock is long and lean and John is slouched against the door. Sherlock tugs up on John’s zip. John strokes Sherlock’s hair, his hand there and quickly gone.

\---

They’re a safe distance from the club, after side streets and a jumped fence. Sherlock bounces on his toes on the glittering curb, trying to hail a cab. John guides him to a stop, a hand on his shoulder, and Sherlock sticks his phone in John’s face. The image is clear enough - an exchange of money and a package the size of a shoebox. It’s plain as day, at an angle a security camera couldn’t hope to capture. Sherlock grins at John.

On the ride home, Sherlock taps his feet, jogs his knees, and spins his phone. John asks him to stop, twice, and Sherlock listens, twice, then forgets.

They stand too close together as they shed their coats, just inside their sitting room. John turns to Sherlock, whose head is lowered as he loosens his scarf. Sherlock has two handfuls of blue cashmere when John dips his head, kisses him with no finesse. The kiss is John’s bounding knee, his fidgety twitch. Sherlock, scarf abandoned around his feet, fails to lift his chin without pulling away and grabs John’s arm, backing into the wall behind him, finding John’s mouth again. John touches Sherlock’s tongue with his own. They knock teeth, fail to calculate for their need to breathe, and give up the effort, studying one another.

“Looked a bit different when it was that bloke at the club,” John observes, dissatisfied and quietly breathless.

“You were staring.”

“Of course I was staring, you arse. I was making sure those great big bastards didn’t skin you right then and there.”

“It looked different because ‘that bloke at the club’ was comfortable kissing me.”

“I’m comfortable.”

The corners of Sherlock’s eyes tighten, “Oh, please.”

John takes a step back, chuckling. “Are you of all people going to pretend that you’re some… some paragon of sexual perversion?”

Sherlock tilts his head, his mood shifting, now pointed, serious. “You think same-sex attraction is perverted?”

“That is not -”

Sherlock cuts in, quiet, quick, and not looking John in the eye, “that is exactly what you said.”

John waves a dismissive hand at Sherlock. “Just - just fuck it. Forget it.” He sighs, rocks on his heels. “What a bizarre night, hm? I’m going to bed.”

John turns toward the stairs without checking for Sherlock’s reaction.


	2. Chapter 2

Sherlock had figured out something about Victor Trevor that others hadn’t noticed. It was fascinating how his tacit knowledge calmed Victor, gave Sherlock run of his smiles and confidences. Sherlock was young – seventeen at the time – well before he had learned how to control what he was capable of. Realizations, useless ones about teachers shagging one another, a neighbor’s kleptomania, his mother’s dislike of how his father made mashed potatoes – surging to the fore in all sorts of unhelpful ways.

But this realization. This boy – shorter than him, newly broad-shouldered, with hazel eyes and rough, wheat-colored hair. Football, excellent student, clever, friendly, a father involved in politics, a mother sitting on the board of an impossible number of charities. So besotted were they with their Platonic ideal of a son that Sherlock was the only one who noticed. The Trevors and the Holmeses lived on the same street, but proximity didn’t explain why a boy like Victor would even acknowledge a boy like Sherlock – bookish thin violin-toting goth by default A levels in Chemistry when he was 14 weird weird weird – much less bother striking up conversation with him, falling into step with him as they came home from school. He asked questions about the violin and told Sherlock about murders he’d read of in the papers, laughing when Sherlock would speculate, too fluently for someone so young and carefully sheltered, about the causal chain that had led to some stranger’s death.

There was a concert – Sherlock doesn’t remember where, but there was one. Bach, small ensemble. And this interesting boy took him using tickets that his mother had gotten thanks to enthusiastic support of some cause or another. Victor sat still and quiet next to Sherlock and worked to understand, while Sherlock rolled his head back against the theater seat and blissfully transcribed music in the air.

They walked home, despite the distance, because it was spring and warm and they were boys and Victor was obviously afraid of something, wrestling with a confession. Sherlock explained what they had listened to and strained to counter with questions about football that would let the other boy talk in the same fluid, easy way Sherlock had when he talked about music or death.

Without preamble, without grace, without anything but absolute honesty and terror, Victor kissed Sherlock when they were four blocks from home. Because, Sherlock understood even in that confusing moment, he had noticed. Sherlock had paused to re-tie one of his shoes and, when he stood, Victor was there, close, with dry lips and a soft, warm mouth. Until it was happening, Sherlock didn’t even know that it was something he wanted. But, now, he was dizzy and his heart was hammering as he tried to figure out how this strange contact worked and, oh, he wanted. 

Victor pulled away just as Sherlock remembered he had hands and that he could touch Victor’s cheek and hair with them. “Oh, God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean –“

“It’s okay. It’s really okay,” Sherlock gasped, trying to step back into Victor’s embrace. But Victor backed away, still apologizing, and turned to hurry down a side street that would take him two blocks out of his way home. “That’s inefficient!” Sherlock yelled after him.

The next time they spoke was three years later, when Victor turned up at Sherlock’s dormitory with red-rimmed eyes and a story about the death of his father that didn’t add up. Sherlock fixed it - he had a realization - and the Trevor family paid him handsomely for it. But, other than the night that Victor spent pacing the floor of Sherlock’s tiny room, telling the story, he avoided Sherlock -

\- who thinks of honey-blond boys with clumsy mouths and aching fears as he stands staring at the steps that lead up to John’s room. He stands there until his back aches, until he sighs, turns, and grabs his violin from the table. It’s 3 am. It doesn’t matter. John is not asleep and Sherlock has the Bach committed to memory.


	3. Chapter 3

Sherlock thumps a two-litre container of milk on their kitchen table. Nearby glassware jumps along with John, who is reading the paper in the sitting room. “At least I got the shopping done,” Sherlock sighs. 

John twists in his chair to respond and freezes, dust motes and sunlight haloing his head and shoulders. He tucks his chin. “What was the purpose of all that, exactly?”

Sherlock looks down and straightens the placket of his cardigan. “Blending in. Mums go shopping on Tuesday afternoons. Things they've forgotten on the weekend and can't ignore any longer. I needed some time to observe the shop staff without being seen. They’re using the produce shipments to traffic designer clothes and handbags. I couldn’t get a picture, though. Infuriating.”

“And this,” Sherlock feels like John is holding his ballet flats and leggings in particular contempt, “is blending in?”

“Exhausted mums at the shop are about the least suspicious and visible people on the planet, John.” Sherlock pauses, reconsiders, “except perhaps grandmothers, but I didn’t have the time nor the inclination for makeup that complex. Looking like this was trouble enough.”

John is out of his chair, having a closer look. Sherlock’s wearing a dark red wrap dress with a generous skirt, a thigh-length beige cardigan, black leggings, and flats that are a near match for the dress. He’s got large sunglasses pushed up on his head and an extension pinned into his hair that looks like a messy bun. There’s a large straw market bag and a navy cotton infinity scarf abandoned on the floor near the door. John clears his throat, “Uh, are you wearing - uh -” 

Sherlock tugs at the neckline of his dress. “God, no. It’s impossible to find the right band size for a man’s chest at a reasonable price. A scarf, this cardigan, and I slouched. In keeping with the character. No one could tell.” John is in the kitchen now, in the dim with Sherlock. Sherlock is watching him almost as closely as he is watching Sherlock. The flat is too quiet and the tie on Sherlock’s dress is beginning to dig. “You can touch me,” Sherlock hears himself say, too loud, “if you want.” 

John shakes his head and seems to come around, but still he stares. “No, no. That would be… no.” 

“You can wear it and I’ll touch you. If you want,” Sherlock offers. 

John turns a hot, shocked red. “Sherlock,” he tries to admonish, but only succeeds in sounding alarmed. John gestures down the hall, over Sherlock’s shoulder. “You should get changed, hm? That doesn’t look comfortable.” 

John is correct. It is transcendently annoying that John is correct. Sherlock puts the bag of groceries away, stuffing the bread into the box using the full force of his irritation with the hairpins digging into his scalp and John's correctness. Sherlock shrugs off the sweater and steps out of the dress, striding down the hall in leggings, leaving the other clothes in a heap in the hallway leading to his room. John and Sherlock step around them for two days before Mrs. Hudson gathers them up and leaves them on Sherlock’s bed.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realized that, really, this is a Pride month story (the degree to which that is true will become clear later). Given that, revisiting it and finishing it now seems wise.

Whoever has been tying people to the tracks of the North Yorkshire Moors Railway at the height of tourist season really, really needs to stop. 

“Give her a blanket,” Sherlock loudly suggests into his phone. John zips his overnight bag and shakes his head. Asking if Emily Williams, age 19, could remain affixed to the tracks until they completed their four-hour trip up the M1 was not the ideal introduction to local law enforcement. “Well, at least take close-up photographs of the knots. I don’t need to tell you not to discard the rope after you’ve freed the woman, do I?” Sherlock pauses. “Thank God.”

John drives their rental and Sherlock holds forth on the sheer variety of things you can learn about a person based on the knots they tie. John is certain that he’s heard this talk before, but its familiarity makes it soothing, rhythmic as London falls away. Sherlock is delighted with the borderline insulting number of photographs the Durham police text him en route. “I think they’re trying to take the piss, Sherlock,” John observes as he changes lanes.

“That may be their intent,” Sherlock trails off, shrugs. 

When they arrive, Emily is sleeping off her ordeal and the remaining - how quaint! - chloroform. Sherlock studies the railroad tracks until the light doesn’t favor the activity while John makes something approaching polite conversation with the officers Sherlock has alienated. 

John insists on dinner at the inn and tries two different pints on tap. It’s barely ten when they turn off the lights in their room, Sherlock’s phone the only illumination for a half-hour. It blinks out and John hears Sherlock fumbling with the charger in the dark.

There’s quiet, for a moment, and then the side of John’s bed dips. 

“You’re not asleep.”

“The brilliant detective at work, ladies and gentlemen.” John does not open his eyes. 

Sherlock quietly clears his throat. “I would like to get in bed with you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

Sherlock climbs over John, creating a heartbeat-skipping moment where his knees are planted on either side of John’s thighs, their faces close, there and gone, and gets under the covers. John can practically hear Sherlock blinking in the dark; can certainly hear him thinking. 

“So. What have we learned?”

“Sharing your bed at home would be more satisfying.”

“How so?”

“Because the blankets would smell like you and not industrial detergent.”

John takes a steadying breath, “Oh,” but he still feels frantic when Sherlock rolls and wraps his arms around John, drawing a few purposeful breaths in his hair before kissing him, unsteady and soft. 

Quickly, it isn’t just one kiss - it’s kisses. It’s desperate and challenging and too fast. It’s suspiciously indistinct from the category “sex,” even though they are fully clothed. Sherlock’s hands are sweating lightly, up under John’s t-shirt, on his back and his ribs, his hammering heart. Sherlock’s thumb brushes John’s nipple while his palm presses flat into John’s heartbeat. Sherlock’s breathing changes, becomes erratic, when John shudders and moans into his mouth. John feels unmoored, losing himself to the way it feels to be so close to Sherlock. He cups Sherlock’s jaw to take a bit of his control of the situation away. Sherlock lurches back, sits, gasps like he’s been struck.

John, flat on his back, skin buzzing, speaks first when Sherlock’s breathing is quiet again. “Was that - was it okay?”

“I - I - I -” Sherlock manages, before he gives up. Sherlock swallows, tries again. “Was it?” John looks at the ceiling with wide eyes, but does not answer. Sherlock persists, “John, please tell me that I didn’t assault you in a hotel room in Pickering.” 

With a sarcastic chuckle, John peers under the blanket. “Evidence would suggest not.”

“You know better. That,” Sherlock gestures at John’s midsection, “wants whatever it can get. Did you want it?”

“I don’t know.” John falls back against the pillows and scrubs his face with his hands. “Did you?”

John feels ill in the ensuing silence. Sherlock never lacks an answer.


End file.
